


i'm not gonna miss you

by Hugabug



Category: Heneral Luna (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Terminal Illnesses, not to be confused w/ modern domestic au, part of the nanridel prof/ta au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 10:17:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6901864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hugabug/pseuds/Hugabug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>i'm just going to have to fall in love with you again. every day.</p><p>(and trust me, it's not that difficult)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm not gonna miss you

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from Glenn Campbell's song "I'm Not Gonna Miss You"-- it actually gives tons of context so I suggest listening to it before reading, especially his Shannon Campbell's cover.

“You’re… incredibly handsome.”

He smiles, a weak quirk of his lips. “Thank you.”

Pole looks at him with a gaze that could only be described with words like _awe_ and _amazement_ , a stare that many years ago, he himself had given Pole (on the first day they met, on the day they first kissed, on the day they sealed the deal and married). In many ways, he still does, but it’s been tainted somehow, with a type of sorrow and pain that only belonged to the truly crestfallen.

“You have to eat now.” He says, standing from his seat by the window and making his way to where his husband’s wheel chair was stationed at the dining table, the bowl of steaming oatmeal before him slowly but steadily growing cold. “Nonong made this for you, you know?”

“Who?”

Miong feels his chest crumple, but forces his face to stay open. “Nonong, mahal. Our son.”

Pole smiles, his eyes trailing Miong’s every movement, his grin warm and smitten and absentminded, distracted. “We have a son?”

“Yes.”

“… We’re married?”

Miong sits down on the chair beside him. Takes his hand. Smiles, tiredly.

“Yes, mahal.” He says, bringing Pole’s knuckles to his lips, kissing each one tenderly. “We are.”

And Pole’s eyes light up with such an impossible happiness that Miong’s crumpled chest swells now, despite everything, growing three times in size and two times as wide.

“You’re… You’re _mine_?” Pole asks, giddy and joyous, like a little child being offered a treat he so badly wants. “ _You_?”

Miong nods. And Pole kisses his palm.

* * *

 

He gently wipes away the water that drips from his husband’s chin and, somehow, he is reminded of a hermit crab, a picky little thing that grows and grows and fills its shell until, one day, it gets up and leaves.

Miong used to joke before that Pole was very much like a hermit crab. Snippy and a recluse, retreating into his little space and shutting out the world save for the things important to him. He grabs at those things—law, Miong, Nonong, his family, his friends, literature—and he holds them tight. Puts them on his shell. Decorates his home, personalizes it. Makes it his own.

And now, he was leaving. Growing out of his shell and becoming a stranger to it as much as it was a stranger to him. Just a decorated little space on the empty expanse of the ocean floor.

“I think I’m in love with you.” Pole says, nuzzling the hand that still remains on his cheek.

Miong hums. They’ve had this conversation before. “What makes you say that?”

“I just think— _know_ that I am?” Pole replies, both certain and unsure, brow knotted in concentration but eyes wide and clear, gears turning. “I love you.”

“You can’t _just_ say things like that, you know?” Miong says, tone gentle but intent firm. Anything to jog memory, the doctors said. To slow down the process of losing the Pole he knew. “You need to have a basis.”

“Love at first sight could be considered a basis.”

“But you and I know that you don’t believe in that.”

“I don’t.” Pole agrees, removing Miong’s hand from his cheek but keeping it close nonetheless, clutching it with his thin fingers like a life line. “But _you_ do. You told me. You—”

Miong holds in a breath, and Pole looks at the floor, still frowning, then looks at Miong’s hand still intertwined with his.

“I’m sorry.” He says, holding on just a little bit tighter. “What were we talking about? I really like holding your hand.”

Miong lets out the breath he was holding, counts until the pain in his throat subsides and he prides himself in reaching only nine when yesterday his lowest record had been fifteen.

“It’s alright.” Miong reassures his husband, reaching up with his free hand to cup his cheek. “You can hold on to it as long as you want.”

Pole nuzzles his hand like he did before, anchoring himself. “Thank you.”

Miong hums. “You’re welcome. Always.”

* * *

 

Later that evening, there’s a nervous exhale of breath that echoes across the walls of their bedroom. “I’ve fallen in love with you.”

“Oh, that’s a relief.” Miong laughs, as light and as breathless as the first time he heard those words. “I’ve been in love with you for _ages_.”

Pole’s answering smile is brilliant.

* * *

 

He wakes up the next morning with his right hand trapped within a left one, and another right hand, not his own, lain upon his jaw, a thumb lightly tracing a constant path across his cheek bones with the caress of the apologetic. And when he opens his eyes, he meets unsure but clear brown ones trailing over every part of his face, cataloguing, committing all the details, all the plains and crevices, to a memory bank that was simply not there anymore.

“Good morning.” Miong says, turning a bit to kiss the shaking palm against his wrinkled cheeks.

“Miong.” Pole replies, looking like he’s reciting something he painstakingly memorized. “Who are you?”

Miong counts. Reaches eleven. Takes a deep breath.

“I’m someone who loves you and is here to help you.” He answers. Then countering one question with another, says; “Are you afraid of me?”

Pole shakes his head. “I—” he begins, flushing a bright pink all the way to the tip of his nose. “I feel… safe around you. Like I belong.” He frowns, expression crumpled.

“Alright then.” Miong smiles, squeezing the hand in his. Bringing it up to his lips, kissing each knuckle. “ _Mahal_.”

“ _Miong_.” Pole says, tone unsure and sad, devastated in ways indescribable. “I know your name, but I don’t know who you are.”

There’s frustration and longing there. A desperation for knowledge that matters to both mind and heart. Miong’s chest aches to hear it, but he forces his smile to stay warm and welcoming, soft around the edges and comforting, a well-worn blanket ready to pull him back in every time his mind pulls away.

(For years, Pole has been his anchor. Now, it’s time to return the favor.)

“It’s alright, mahal.” He reassures him as Pole resumes his memorizing, soldiering on with a determination that comes naturally to him. Miong chuckles. “You’ll have all day to figure it out. I’m not going anywhere.”

**Author's Note:**

> dahil bday ko, i decided to break my creative abstinence for the first time in forever (this is a lie, but formally i am still an all-acads-no-creative-shenanigans-virgin). yas.


End file.
